In - depth analysis of the
human body's microflora has been possible only in the past few years — a by - product of the same new gene
sequencing techniques that have allowed scientists to cheaply and
accurately identify the DNA of the
human genome.
This was a daunting task, as the barley
genome is almost twice the size of the
human genome and 80 percent of it is composed of highly repetitive
sequences, which can not be assigned
accurately to specific positions in the
genome without considerable extra effort.